Archive for the 'FOOD EVENTS:' Category

Menu for hope – reminder

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Don’t miss a chance to win a Moomin baking parcel with lots of Moomin cookie cutters, prize code EU08

I hope that you havn’t missed Menu for Hope 5, it´s a great opportunity to donate money at the same time as you have a chance to win fabulous prizes including lovely Moomin baking ware donated by me. If you still have Christmas presents left to buy you should definitly buy a few raffle tickets in your friend´s name. There are gift cards to print out here that you can give to your recipient.

Food Events IRL, Food Events Online, FOOD EVENTS: | Comments (3)

Menu for hope V: Win Moomin bakeware!

Monday, December 15th, 2008

Moomin baking collection, prize code EU08

It’s December and for the fifth year in a row food bloggers from all over the world are raising money to the United Nations World Food Programme by offering wonderful culinary prizes to tempt people to donate money.

For every US$10, the you receive a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Last year we collected the incredible sum of nearly $100.000!!! This year once again, all money will go to the UN World Food Programme and the money are earmarked to a school’s feeding program in Lesotho. We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but helps them stay in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. Everyone, no matter where you live, can participate. Make sure to check out all available prizes at Chez Pim, just check that the things you want to bid on can be shipped to where you live.

To read more about Menu for Hope 5, who benefits from it, what percentage of the funds actually goes to those we help etc, go to this link on Chez Pim.

So what do I do to contribute to Menu for Hope 5? I’m donating a very special prize to the raffle, quite similiar to last years prize, to tempt my dear readers. My prize for Menu for Hope is a baking collection for all Moomin lovers! It’s Moomin Mania, a special irresistible baking collection for all Moomin lovers (prize code EU08) that consists of:

1 Moomintroll cake mold
1 Moomintroll cookie cutter
1 Moominmamma cookie cutter
1 Moominpappa cookie cutter
1 Lilla My cookie cutter
1 Snork maiden cookie cutter
1 Groke cookie cutter
1 Snufkin cookie cutter
1 Hattifatteners cookie cutter
1 Grooke cookie cutter
1 Stinky cookie cutter
4 dessert spoons from Hackman with Moomin motifs
Moomin paper napkins
1 pot holder with Moomin motifs
1 oven mit with Moomin motifs

Everything is of course brand new in their original packages and I will ship them anywhere in the world. The 9 different cookies come out beautifully with outlines and people just love them. You can make any cut-out cookies with the cutters and decorate them as you wish. The cake mold holds 400 ml and results in a cute Moomin cake.

How to bid for a prize:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope prize list at Chez Pim.

2. Go to the donation site at First Giving and make a donation.

3. Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. You must specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.
For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02

4. For US donors, if your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

6. Bids on prizes will be accepted from December 15-24th. The last day to bid on a prize is December 24th.

7. Check back on Chez Pim on January 12, when Pim will announce the result of the entire raffle.

Food Events IRL, Food Events Online, FOOD EVENTS: | Comments (5)

Home chef of the year – the finale

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Just before the finals. We had to wear Tasteline’s white aprons and hats, but luckily we had our lovely red aprons that Anne’s sister Eva kindly sewed to us.

Wow, I don’t know where to start. First of all thanks for all comments, calls, emails, text and facebook messages that I have received after Anne, Lena and I won the title Home chef of the year / Årets hemmakock! And of course my warmest thanks and hugs to Anne and Lena for being such fantastic team mates. I feel overwhelmed, surprised, honoured, and very very happy!

So let me present the home chefs of the year: Team Sörmland or actually Anne, Lena and myself. Due to a business trip Lena wasn’t able to participate in the finals yesterday. While I and Anne were competing, Lena impatiently sat in an airplane heading to the US. But we had a photo of her at our cooking station, so she was still with us in a way :-)

The days before I was quite stressed and nervous, but all nervousness disappeared as we got up on the stage and started focusing on the cooking. We had 45 minutes to finalize our Stockholm chili that we had already prepared with Lena the evening before. Since the main ingredient for the competition was cut of beef from the front part, being quite tough, all four finalists had to prepare the meat in advance. There was also an improvisation moment during the 45 minutes. Ten minutes before we were allowed to start cooking we received a list of ingredients that were available for an appetizer that we had to cook. The list was a bit disappointing, but we came up with a few ideas. We decided to do a mixture consisting of crème fraîche, marinated bell peppers, lemon zest, garlic and black pepper that we wrapped in Serrano ham and placed on a mixed salad with apple cider vinegar and croutons. On top we sprinkled newly fried capers. The minutes passed by very quickly: we started with rolling out dough for our spelt crackers, sprinkled them with Ancho chili and sea salt. Then we baked them in the oven. We prepared the condiments to the chili: chopped onion, grated cheese, chopped cilantro, oven roasted tomatoes and crème fraîche. The filling to the appetizer was prepared, the Serrano ham was filled and rolled and the capers were fried. And most important: the chili was finalized so it would taste perfect. When we had 10 minutes left I started to fear that we wouldn’t make it in time. But with 40 seconds left, we had plated all food and were ready to present 5 plates with appetizers and 5 plates with Stockholm chili to the jury.

It was a challenge to cook on stage in front of 300 people. We didn’t have any water in our kitchens and it was extremely cramped. But we did our best and we were focused while having fun. But still it was a relief to get off the stage and be able to relax. It was lovely t to sit down, drink some water and speak with our husbands. Both me and Anne were quite sure we wouldn’t win, despite the fact that we were pleased with our effort. The jury, well known in the food and restaurant industry, consisted of Kurt Weid, Markus Aujalay, Ingrid Eriksson, Ella Nilsson and Alice Brax. We had the impression that the jury was a bit traditional and thus wouldn’t pick our chili. When they finally were about the present the winner, they only had one bouquet of flowers with them on stage so I thought that we definitly hadn’t won. Then Kurt Weid started reading the motivation. After the first sentence I got even more convinced that it wasn’t us. But when the second sentence was read I became a little bit confused as it suited our entry the best. But still, I thought that Skåne was the winner and I even said it load when Kurt Weid asked the audience who the winner was. And suddenly Kurt said “Sörmland”, loud music started playing and everyone started applauding.
I was taken aback. Surprised. Shocked. Honoured. OMG we won! I can’t describe how overwhelming and happy that moment was. And still is.

The jury’s motivation:

“The winner has made good use of the raw materials and has in an inspiring way raised taste and consistency to a high level. The modern presentation of the main course becomes a symbol for the province’s development and future.”

Anne is answering questions while cooking.

Two of the other contestants: Johan competing for the province Skåne and Per competing for the province Härjedalen.

Here we have just returned to the kitchen after presenting our food to the jury. One of the presenters, Lisa, is asking questions about our food.

They were filming and putting it on display so every one in the audience would see what was happening on the stage.

Waiting for the results. Here you can see a part of the audience.

Just a few seconds after we were announced as the winners. You can see our surprised looks.

One of the prizes, a culinary trip to the Swedish province Jämtland including a cooking class. We also received a knife and cast iron pan.

The presenters, Erik Haag och Lisa Förare Winbladh, are talking with us a few minutes after the announcement. To the right Magdalena Kvarning from Tasteline.

The photos were taken by Fredrik.

Food Events IRL, FOOD EVENTS: | Comments (21)

We won!

Friday, November 14th, 2008

I’m shocked: we won! We are this year’s home chef! More info and photos on www.tasteline.com

Food Events IRL, FOOD EVENTS: | Comments (18)

We’re finalists in “Home chef of the year” / “Årets hemmakock”

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Stockholm chili, however on the photo the homemade spelt crackers are substituted with nachos and I did the ovenroasted tomatoes with yellow pear shaped cherry tomatoes instead of red plum tomatoes.

I’m very excited to tell you that I’m competing together with my friends (and food bloggers) Anne and Lena in the cooking competition “Home chef of the year” organized by Tasteline. And guess what, we made it to the finals! We’re one of four finalists! Wow!

The competition has the theme “the new Sunday dinner” and the recipe needs to relate to a Swedish landskap (province) in some way and must contain specific parts of beef. I, Anne and Lena are representing Sörmland (the province where Stockholm is situated) ad our recipe is a Stockholm chili with oven roasted tomatoes and spelt crackers. It’s a quite spicy and hearty chili with 3 types of chili and Coca Cola (!), and beside the oven roasted tomatoes and spelt crackers it should be served with grated cheese, sour cream and chopped onions.

Our recipe (in Swedish) can be found here.
An article about us (in Swedish) can be found here.
All finalists can be found here.

The finals are on November 13th, don’t forget to keep your fingers crossed for us! I’m very nervous as we’ll be cooking live in front of the jury and other people… We’re the only women in the finals and the only team, the others are men and they are competing individually.

Food Events IRL, FOOD EVENTS: | Comments (11)

Daring Bakers: Pizzas in the air!

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

One, two…..

Today you’ll find over 1000 blog posts about pizza as it’s Daring Bakers time again! This month’s challenge was to toss and makes pizzas. The recipe was choosen by Rosa and can be found here.

….three!

This challenge is one of the best so far, not because of the recipe but because I made it together with Anne at my place. The evening before she came I prepared the dough. It was super easy to prepare and on the next day when she came we made the tossing, topping and baking. The tossing was fun, but it was impossible for the pizza dough to stay intact after the tossing. So after each tossing we had to re-shape the pizzas…. We prepared the pizza doughs and then we involved our husbands with letting them top their own pizzas. For topping we choose between mozzarella cheese, salami, ham, red onion, fresh mushrooms, ruccola, and ready made tomato sauce. We baked the pizzas on our Ipinium oven sheets, they worked great as pizza stones thanks to their heat retention and distribution.

Sharing a challenge with a friend is so much nicer that doing it yourself, so if you have a Daring Baker close by don’t hesitate to do the next challenge together! I promise you’ll have a lot of fun! To see Anne’s post about our pizza making go to this page.

Ready to put into the oven.

Ready to eat!

Daring Bakers, FOOD EVENTS: | Comments (29)

Blogging by mail

Monday, October 27th, 2008

On Friday I received my secret blogging by mail parcel. I love participating in blogging by mail and food blogging by post (the European version) as it’s so much fun sending and receiving parcels! It’s a great way to get to know other people and cultures. It turned out that this time my parcel came all the way from Ohio in the US, from a fellow Daring Baker: Fran at Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie. Thank you so much for your lovely parcel, Fran! And thanks to Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness for hosting the event. And the parcel that I sent? It is travelling to another continent….

Below you can see all the great things that I received from sweet Fran:

There’s something special with handwritten letters. I will make someone happy with handwritten letters written on the included stationary.

I’ve always been wanting American measuring cups so that I don’t need to convert all those recipes that I try out, so I was very happy for these.

I love mustard! And the silicone pot holder will come in handy.

The tangy lemon heads are my kind of sweets, lovely! The jellies were bought at the farmer’s market, I havn’t tried them yet but they look very promising.

I love cookie cutters and this pumpkin shaped one will surely be used during this week with Halloween coming up! On the picture you can also see cute party bags and even cuter cupcake sticks with animals!

Mmm, oatmeal scotchies. Delicious!!!

The cats were very curious when the parcel arrived

Food Blogging By Post, FOOD EVENTS: | Comments (11)

Hötorgshallen is celebrating 50 years

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Hötorgshallen, one of the indoor food markets in Stockholm, is celebrating 50 years. Yesterday evening was the opening for the celebrations that will be ongoing from October 2nd until October 4th. There was a lot of people present last evening, mingling and trying out different goodies from the sellers: fresh oysters, sushi, Finnish boeuf Bourgignon, meze, and so much more. More information about the coming days, in Swedish, can be found here.